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Lesson 11

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Lesson 11: Social & Political Philosophy Introduction

 

Sometimes considered a branch of ethics, social and political philosophy concentrates more on the moral (or immoral) actions of large groups and societies rather than the choices of individuals. Philosophical reflections on this scale relate to why societies are the way are and/or what should societies strive to become. This lesson concentrates on the philosophical sub-discipline of political and social philosophy and the issues related to it.

 

Normative and Descriptive Ethics Again, Writ Large

            The study of political philosophy can be divided into descriptive and normative categories, just like for individual ethical standards. As before, the descriptive aspect concerns itself with what is, while the normative asks what ought to be. However, unlike ethics, social and political philosophy apply these concepts to much larger groups of people, interfacing with disciplines such as sociology and political science.

 

A (Very) Brief History of Political Philosophy

Like most aspects of philosophy, political philosophy and social theory began with the Ancient Greeks, notably the work of Plato. Plato was an aspiring politician in Athens until the city-state (polis) condemned his teacher, Socrates, to death. Following this, Plato curtailed his public service ambitions, but wrote the Republic, his magnum opus, on the subject.

This massive tome concerned itself primarily with individual and social (state) justice, and includes Plato's philosophical reasoning for what justice is, both for the individual and the society as a whole. He divides the human soul into a three-tiered hierarchy: reason at the top, followed by the spirit (or psyche), and base appetites at the bottom. Likewise, his conception of an ideal state mirrored the structure of the individual soul: philosopher-kings (reason) at the top, the soldiers next, and the masses (called "the many") at the bottom.

Aristotle, like Plato, asserted that the community was more important than the individual, and kept most of Plato's political philosophy intact. That said, Aristotle's own thinking eschewed many of the more utopian (idealist) notions of his teacher. He also believed that the state had a duty to instruct its citizenry on the appropriate virtues and that statesmen should employ correct ethical theory (Aristotle's, of course) to promote happiness (eudaimonia) among the populace (Honderich 1995).

The medieval philosophers, such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, borrowed heavily from the Ancient Greeks, but added elements of Christian faith to their conception of political philosophy. Namely, what is the proper balance to be achieved between religious and political authority. The issues of whether or not a human government should establish conditions conducive to the religious fulfillment of its citizens was a prime concern for Aquinas--an issue that is still very much in play even in modern times.

One of the most famous (or infamous) political philosophers was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose monumental opus, The Prince, would become one of the most influential treatises on the role of government ever written in the Western world. In this work, Machiavelli concentrated on the nature and sustainability of political power rather than abstract ethical codes of morality. " For Machiavelli, there is no moral basis on which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power. Rather, authority and power are essentially coequal: whoever has power has the right to command; but goodness does not ensure power and the good person has no more authority by virtue of being good (SEP 2011)."

In the modern age, Thomas Hobbes set forth his argument for a powerful state government in his book, Behemoth and Leviathan. According to Hobbes, human nature was inherently violent and brutish and, without the proper guidance (read "coercive force") of government to contain the populace, social and political chaos would certainly erupt on a universal scale. Thus, a strong central government was required to maintain law and order and to prevent the dreaded "state of nature" from taking over. He is considered the founder of the modern, secular nation-state.

John Locke was another monumental political philosopher and a prolific writer on a number of other philosophical topics. Unlike Hobbes, who inherently distrusted his fellow man and his motives, Locke asserted

"… that men are by nature free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch. He argued that people have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property, that have a foundation independent of the laws of any particular society. Locke used the claim that men are naturally free and equal as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political government as the result of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better insure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property (SEP 2011)."

Naturally, Locke's philosophy was a tremendous influence on the founding of the United States of America. Many of Locke's tenets became written into the U.S. Constitution, at least indirectly.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's major book, The Social Contract, outlines a political philosophy whereby a political entity can be formed that will respect the individual and uphold its moral duty to obey the law. Within this structure, Rousseau sought an ideal solution to maximize human autonomy in a world where people were more and more dependent on each other for their needs. Thus, he constructed a political system whereby freedom could be attained and preserved by two methods:

"… the first is a political one aimed at constructing political institutions that allow for the co-existence of free and equal citizens in a community where they themselves are sovereign; the second is a project for child development and education that fosters autonomy and avoids the development of the most destructive forms of self-interest. However, though Rousseau believes the co-existence of human beings in relations of equality and freedom is possible, he is consistently and overwhelmingly pessimistic that humanity will escape from a dystopia of alienation, oppression, and unfreedom (SEP 2011)."

The utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill was also a significant entry in the realm of political philosophy. Based on the ages-old hedonistic philosophy of Epicurus, this school of thought expanded the pleasure/pain principle to the society at large. That is, societies (and to a lesser extent, individuals) should act in a way that brings about the most good for the greatest number of people.

Finally, Karl Marx, borrowing extensively from the thought of Hegel and Feuerbach, created a historically-dynamic interpretation of society. Marx was bitterly antagonistic toward the ideas of liberal individualism. Using Hegel's dialectic and Feuerbach's concept of materialism, Marx prophesied that the world's political and economic destiny lay inevitably in communism--a stateless utopia that would be achieved when the working masses (the "proletariat") took control of the "means of production" and subsequently fomented a social revolution that would unseat the old, monied bourgeoisie (read "capitalists") of the world. His major works are The Communist Manifesto (co-authored with Friedrich Engels) and Das Kapital.

Issues in Political Philosophy

 

There are many large, over-arching questions that are the purview of social and political philosophy. Among the ethical concepts are autonomy, freedom as rational self-determination, human nature, democracy, justice, rights, political obligation, the role of the state, eugenics, genocide, the role of warfare, and the optimal size of government, among many others (Honderich 1995).

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